Post navigation

My favorite word? I can only pick ONE?

In yesterday’s blog salad (what I call the blogs I fill with short linked items that interest me), I had something from the Edinburgh book festival about authors’ favorite words. I wasn’t there and thus wasn’t asked for mine.So I’ll give it to you now.

Wait!

A favorite word? ONE? Just *one*? You’re kidding!

I’m reminded of the poor idiot who blundered into the dark cave and felt shifting pebbles under his feet and tried to touch them. A voice from the dark said, “If you take one, you will regret it. If you don’t take one, you will regret it.”

So he took one, figuring if he was going to regret it anyway he might as well know why. When he made his way out of the dark cave (to which he could never return…) heexamined his prize and found it to be a jewel of great value and beauty. The voice was vindicated because if he had not taken the one he had in his hand he would have been haunted by what-ifs; but now that he knew what he had, he regretted not having filled his pockets with the “pebbles” while he had the chance.

So, one word? ONE? If I pick one, I will regret it; if I don’t pick one, I will regret it…

So I’ll pick one.

*WINTER*.

And damn G R R Martin’s eyes for stealing “Winter is coming” and associating it forever with a single story, a single world, and what’s more for making it a threat, a warning. “Winter is coming” is used as a club, as a prod, as a bribe – because winter is coming and with it bad things you’d better take care of things NOW because if you don’t then you may never get to.

But winter is beautiful.

Snow is beautiful, and silent, and pure, and shimmers under a cold winter moon with a magic that is uniquely its own and can smite you with its icy glory. The quality of winter light is beautiful, sharp and slivered and cold, its shadows blue, edged with a honed black on which you can cut your hand if you reach out and touch it. Winter stars are closer and brighter. The smell of winter mornings, with the night frost still in the air, is exhilarating. Winter winds have voices.

I treasure winters. And long before Mr Martin and the HBO, when the first golden leaves begin falling from their trees I lifted my head like a hunting dog scenting quarry and whispered to myself, “Winter. WINTER is coming.”

—–31 Day Blog Challenge, #15

MY DAY’S TIMELINE

Wake up. Get coffee brought to me in bed by loving husband (this was one of the things which he promised to do every day if I married him – and he has kept his word). Talk in bed while I finish that coffee. Kick the cat out from behind my knees and get up.

Have breakfast. Feed the birds (though the squirrels usually get there first) outside. Grab another cup of coffee and take it down to my computer. Check my email. Check the web. Write. Go waste time on Facebook when I get stuck on something in the hope that something gets jostled loose. Drink more coffee. Write some more.

Have dinner. Watch something on TV. Sometimes go back to the computer, after that. Come midnight or so, go to bed. Suffer from the usual insomnia for an hour or two, and then finally fall asleep. And then, wake up…

Sometimes shaken up by going out to do errands, taking time out to do chores like paying bills or dealing with the business end of writing, playing with the cat, etc.

—–Famous Writers Who Loved Sports

It’s not always jocks vs. nerds, Buzzfeed says.

If Tolkien hadn’t been injured playing tennis, it’s entirely possible that there would be NO SUCH THING as Gandalf the Grey. *shudders*

The New York Times’ tennis blog Straight Sets explains:

“But continuing to play tennis after the age of 40, Tolkien found himself wounded by the sport. After injuring his ankle in a match against Angus McIntosh, some 22 years his junior, Tolkien was immobilized, and his idleness beget the fantasy series that would bring him worldwide acclaim…”

A fiery plane crash in 1948 killed 32 people, most of them unidentified Mexican farmworkers. A writer’s painstaking detective work has answered the question posed in Woody Guthrie’s song about the crash — who are all these people “scattered like dry leaves?”